


Stay Out Of It

by thosefarplaces



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 18:29:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1993287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thosefarplaces/pseuds/thosefarplaces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dr. Delphine Cormier is accidentally drawn into Cosima Niehaus's case. It should be possible - if expensive - to treat her new patient's illness. It doesn't have to be life-threatening. The catch? Cosima has no life insurance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [this question](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/62631) by elena6375. 



She’s seen enough of the medical file to know what to expect. She steels herself before opening the door, as she does at every such door in the hospital, with the ease of long practice. Shoulders squared, smile placed just so, steady, antiseptic breaths filling her lungs. She opens the door and the smell of blood does not surprise her.

But the girl clasping a reddened tissue does.

They’re always so much more than the sum of their maladies. Delphine knows this, even as she also knows that the girl’s name is Cosima Niehaus, and she is 5’4” and O+, and extremely ill. But she was not expecting her to be so…young.

“Hi,” the girl says, wiping her lips. “Um.” She looks past Delphine’s shoulder before the door swings shut, looking for another white coat that doesn’t come. “Is Dr. Leekie…?”

“I’m afraid he is not here today. Family emergency. They – they didn’t tell you?” She’s trying not to stare at the too-small frame huddled beneath the red coat. 30 years old, the file said? So why does this girl – they are almost of an age, but she cannot help thinking of her like that – look so much brighter and more fragile than she has any right to be?

“Nope. I mean, not like it’s important or anything, my doctor being gone and all.” She grins at her own joke, winces a little. Delphine waits for a cough, but all she hears is a ragged breath. “But it’s cool. So uh, you’re standing in, then?”

“Oh. Yes – I’m sorry. Dr. Cormier.” She holds out a hand and puts on the smile that she doesn’t remember losing.

The girl’s hand is warm in her own. Feverishly warm. “Cosima.”

“Enchantée, Cosima.”

It’s just a pleasantry. She’s said it a thousand times in this building alone. But for some reason Cosima’s face lights up at it. She grins again, a silent laugh pulled into one corner of her mouth, drawing away from the flecks of blood on her lips.

“May I ask you a few questions, before we go over these results?”

“Go for it, doc.”

Afterward, she remembers the scan Leekie had ordered, remembers with clinical precision the shadows looming pale where darkness should have been, a riot of cells in place of silence. But more than this, she remembers the dip in Cosima Niehaus’s shoulders at the news. The hand, once tanned, now whitening after what she can only imagine as months of struggle and identical rooms and fluorescent lights, clenching tighter around a bloody tissue. _Mon dieu_ , she thinks, and silently curses the second worst part of her job. She almost wishes it had been Leekie giving her the news. Cosima is, after all, his patient.

Almost.

But instead it is Delphine who places a gentle hand on the girl’s shoulder. It’s not much – it’s more than she should do, perhaps – but it’s enough for Cosima to lift her head, inhaling shakily. She doesn’t quite smile, but she nods. She listens. And Delphine – Dr. Cormier – explains the options.

 —-

The next few days are a staccato series of calls. To Dr. Leekie, who she’s only met a few times and who explains that he won’t be able to return for a while. To the records department, who give her everything, some digital, some paper, a flood of data on all of the different ways in which her new patient’s lungs have gone wrong. And finally, incredulously, to records again when she makes it past the medical details to the contact information. The blank lines in place of insurance.

“There must be some mistake.” She runs a hand through tangled hair, phone held between chin and shoulder as she waits.

“No, Dr. Cormier, I’m afraid not. We’ve got a note here, ah,” papers shuffle on the other end, “from when she registered. The receptionist double-checked with her. That’s all there is.”

Delphine hangs up. She stares at the sum on her laptop screen.

At the life-saving surgery that Cosima Niehaus, who has no insurance to speak of, cannot afford.


	2. Chapter 2

This is not the first time she’s had a terminal patient. That first was years ago, and she’s gotten used to it by now. (As much as you can. Enough to sleep at night.) But this is the first time she’s had one who didn’t _have_ to be terminal, whose odds could be so promising, if only-

 _Stop. Stop it._ She resolves not to think about Cosima Niehaus. She loses herself in paperwork and references until her eyes can’t take any more, and when she collapses into bed, she is too blissfully tired to think of anything.

So her dreams do the thinking for her. They are full of scarlet drops and twining lines and a grave in the rain. It is empty. For now. Delphine kneels to touch the stained tissues someone has left in place of flowers.

She wakes shivering the next morning with a curse on her lips.

—-

For the next few days she honestly forgets. There are plenty of distractions. But then Thursday comes and she’s opening the same door again, and there is no scent of blood this time, but Cosima is there, looking up with a wry smile and a wave. The smile fades with the first question, though.

It’s really not a mistake. The forms are up to date. One by one, the hopes Delphine has been clinging to go out.

“And you’re not…I mean, there is no one who could help? Your parents, or a husband, or-”

Cosima’s been getting annoyed with the endless insurance questions to which her answer is always no, drumming her painted nails along the table. Now she lets out a sound so loud that for a second Delphine almost lunges for the tissue box. But it’s a snort, not a cough, and she stops herself in time. Cosima waggles her left hand at her, still chuckling.

“I am distinctly unmarried. And, uh, not so much the ‘husband’ type.”

 _Oh._ “You have enough rings on the other ones,” Delphine points out. “It is hard to tell.”

“Yeah, well, compensating I guess. Pretty sure it’s in my file, anyways. Didn’t they have like a box for that on the forms?”

“They have many boxes, but,” she makes a show of leafing through the file, “ah, yes. Here it is: ‘distinctly unmarried’. How could I forget.”

The girl laughs. “No sweat. All is forgiven.”

“So…your parents? Your – mother,” she corrects, looking at the file again. Father deceased. 10 years ago. “Could she-”

Cosima smiles but there is no warmth in it in this time, only a reflexive twitch of the lips. She looks down at her legs, swinging past the edge of the examination table, and shakes her head. “Nope.”

Delphine leaves room for an explanation. There is none. In the growing silence she tries to imagine a scenario in which a mother who’d let her daughter face…this…alone, without proper treatment, is not cruel, only equally helpless. It’s possible, she supposes. But it feels like no less of a sick joke.

“Scholarship.”

Delphine looks at her, confused.

“And a stipend, y’know, through my grad program,” Cosima adds. “That’s how I’ve been paying for everything so far.”

“Ah. Well then.” She opens one of the folders on the desk, nods decisively, and pulls a spreadsheet from it.

They try to budget the continuation of Cosima’s life.

There are far too many shrugs beneath that red coat for the next half hour, too many shakes of the head and swaying locks when Delphine asks in her most neutral voice about this expense or that. Only one cough, which comes as quickly as it goes. It leaves Cosima looking brittle, her frame tensing. Delphine does not mention it. The moment passes.

“So how long’ve I got? With…this plan.”

Delphine wants to lie, but anything less than the truth would be an insult, and she half expects the girl would know in an instant. So she doesn’t lie. She…glosses over. “Eight months.”

Cosima’s eyebrows shoot up in thin arcs. For a moment, nothing. Then: “Huh. That’s better than…” She trails off thoughtfully, free hand tracing shapes in the air as she runs through silent calculations. The relief in her voice over so little as _eight months_ is a weight that only Delphine seems to feel, sinking deep between her ribs. But then Cosima squeezes her eyes shut and sighs. She rubs an eyebrow.

“Okay, eight months. But how many good ones?”

_Merde._

She is waiting.

“You mean-”

“I mean how many like this,” she flaps a hand at herself, bracelets clinking, ankles crossing and uncrossing, “and how many like…” She slumps over, pressing an invisible oxygen mask to her face. “Contraptions galore, passing out if I sit up too fast. Y’know.”

“It’s hard to say.”

“Best guess.”

“Five. Maybe six,” she amends hastily, as if it makes a difference. She wishes this sort of arithmetic weren’t so easy. Or necessary. Sometimes she misses the simplicity of research. There was a certain distance to it that she didn’t value until…

Well. Until she had her MD, and it was too late.

There is a knock on the door. Cosima jumps a little. Delphine goes to it and finds a nurse standing outside. “Sorry, Dr. Cormier, it’s just – your 4 o’clock? He’s been waiting for a while now and he asked-”

“What?” She glances at her watch. 4:20. _Merde_. “Oh, th-thank you. Tell him I will be there in a moment.” The door closes. She turns to make her apologies, but Cosima has already hopped down from the table, bag slung over one shoulder.

“It’s cool, I heard.”

They both stand there. Cosima sighs.

“Five months,” she murmurs, as if to herself.

“At the very least,” Delphine tells her. _You’re not supposed to give them promises_. The girl manages a smile. “I’m-”

“-sorry. I know. Me too.” More standing, not meeting each other’s eyes. Finally, Cosima shrugs. “Say-la-vee, right? I’ll…I’ll see you next week.” And with that, she heads out the door. Something tightens in Delphine’s throat as she watches it swing shut.

_C’est la vie._

She rubs her eyes and puts on her smile.

—-

Cosima starts the only treatment she can afford, a series of pills in place of surgery. Endless scans confirm what Delphine already knows: they will help, a little. But not nearly enough.

She learns that Cosima is studying evolutionary development (the girl has some nickname for it that she can never remember) and, embarrassingly, Cosima goes and reads her graduate thesis after Delphine makes the mistake of telling her its title. Less embarrassingly, she likes it, and it makes the checkups easier, speaking of science and other people’s immunology now and then. Hosts and parasites other than Cosima and the mass within her chest. She got her bachelor’s in San Francisco (“San Fran”), though she is from Berkeley (is there a nickname for this too? Delphine does not remember), and she listens to electronic music in the waiting room. She is always dressed so brightly. She is getting pale.

Every other patient is slowly dissolving into a series of notations. Mostly things like, “Fine,” “Fine,” “In recovery,” “Insured,” “Is going to be fine.” Delphine struggles, guiltily, to give them her full attention. It’s a losing battle. She spends her breaks on the phone with various insurance companies _._ She argues with them, and argues with poor Colin from records, who is not in any way to blame, until one day her boss pulls her aside in between appointments.

“Delphine, this has to stop.”

“What?” She is very careful to keep her voice low, her breathing even.

“Look, records has been complaining about you for weeks. I saw the patient file. I know it’s hard, but this…this is not your responsibility.” He is a good man, her boss, a good doctor. He is probably right. “You’re not her family. You’ve done enough.”

Her hands clench in coat pockets. “I’m a doctor, stay out of it?”

“Yes.” He waits.

“Fine.”

But it’s not fine. Not at all.

—-

Ideas are funny things. Until he mentioned it, she hadn’t thought about her own insurance. But it’s a generous plan, and Delphine, who never gets sick, has made a very tall set of payments to them over the years and never used a cent of them.

Later she will remember this as the night that she went a little mad. But right now, she is sitting at her desk in her apartment, nursing a glass of wine and scrolling through the terms of her plan. It is cold, and quiet, as it always is in this white-walled place. She never put much time into furnishings when she moved. It is enough, she supposes, to have a place to sleep, if not a home. The same crazy thought has been circling in her head for several hours. _It’s the wine,_ she tells herself. She is just a doctor. She is not desperate enough for this.

But Cosima is. And Cosima is dying.

The thought starts to take root.


	3. Chapter 3

Delphine has settled on telling her in two weeks – sixteen days, to be exact, if she can work out all the details by then, if there’s no improvement in the scans, if she can find a way to actually explain this mad idea…

Sixteen days, because Cosima has exams until then, and they both have more than enough to deal with in the meantime.

 —-

“Cosima! I’m so sorry I’m late.” She throws a quick smile to the girl perched on the table, door swinging shut behind her, and rummages through her purse. “Lunch, you know, it ran long, but I wanted to show you something. Yesterday I found the most interesting paper on-”

“Could we not do the whole science talk today?”

Cosima’s voice is hoarse. Delphine glances up from her bag, and only then, too late, does she notice that the girl’s eyes are puffy, and that the tissue in her hand is, for once, not only wet with blood. A small part of Delphine’s brain registers that her mascara is still perfect. _Has she always worn waterproof? Even before?_

“Of…of course,” she stammers. Cosima isn’t actually crying, but her lips are pursed in a thin, whitening line. She fumbles for something, anything, to offer. All she finds is a question. “What is it?”

The words are out before she can stop them. They land flat in the still, cool air, and Delphine opens her mouth to apologize: _You don’t have to tell me, I’m sorry_. Only Cosima breaks the silence first.

“I was just thinking today,” she says, “that I’ve got a little under two years left in my program.” Her voice is taut. Tension is not like Cosima. “I took a year off in the middle. Kind of. Not like off doing _nothing_ , but,” her hands convey a whirlwind, “lots of extra rotations, just figuring out what the hell I really wanted to do.” She’s a little steadier now, but still rocking on the border of a breakdown, shoulders hunched. “I know it’s stupid. I mean, I couldn’t have known. But…if I hadn’t done that? If I’d just settled _down_ for once in my life and finished what I’d started…I’d have time to get my degree.”

Irrationally, Delphine wants to reach out to her, but she stills her hands in her lap. She listens.

“It made me so _angry_ , you know?” She rubs her eyes with her palms. Laughs, hollowly. “At least at first. Then I realized, what the fuck does it matter if it says Cosima Niehaus on my gravestone instead of ‘Cosima Niehaus, PhD’.”

Delphine watches the fragile rise and fall of the girl’s shoulders. Her throat is tight.

Cosima pushes her glasses up the ridge of her nose and coughs. No blood, just…clearing the air. “God, I…I am _so_ sorry.” She is starting to blush. Under other circumstances, the color would be a good sign. “But you asked, and-”

“No, no, it is fine!” The words spill out hastily, but her voice is level. That much she has practice with. “I did ask.” She smiles, and Cosima smiles weakly back.

“So you see why I need a break from the science.”

“Oui. Yes.” She hesitates. “It’s not silly, though, you know. To be disappointed.”

Reddened eyes meet her own.

“’Doctor Niehaus’ – it has a nice sound to it.”

There’s a horrible moment where she thinks this was the wrong thing to say. Her stomach lurches. But then Cosima’s mouth opens and giggles spill out. She is laughing so hard she has to grip the table to keep from falling. Delphine bites her lip, restraining herself to a grin.

“Oh god, it does,” she gasps between laughs. “Distinguished as fuck, right? And imagine me giving all the wide-eyed freshmen genetics lectures, _completely_ blowing their little minds-”

Then she doubles over in a coughing fit.

Delphine hands her the tissues reflexively, mutely, her own chest heavy. She wasn’t going to broach the idea. Not yet. It’s too…

_Too crazy? Too much to offer? Or to ask?_

She watches each cough tear through the girl beside her like a gale through leaves. Her mouth is bloody behind the tissue, dark eyes squeezed shut. There is no time when this will be any _less_ of a bad idea. But maybe there’s a time when it will be less of a good one.

The fit subsides. They both go back to breathing normally.

“Thanks,” Cosima murmurs. She wipes her mouth on a fresh tissue. “I know it’s your job and everything, but it…really helps. Having someone to talk to about this shit.”

For a while Delphine says nothing. She is weighing days against the sight of this brilliant, funny girl already so…resigned. So defeated. “Cosima?”

She is toying with a bracelet. “Yeah?”

“What if…there were a way to get you the surgery?” Delphine is breathing less easily, now.

Her brows knit together in confusion. “Well that would be awesome, but there’s not. That’s the whole sad point. No insurance, no rich relatives to kick it and send me inheritance, no job prospects with that kind of money-”

“No, no, I know, you cannot cover it yourself.”

“What’re you telling me?” Cosima shifts back a bit on the table. _She is wary_ , Delphine thinks. _She wants to hope, only it seems too good to be true_. “Is there some kind of discount?”

“There would be.” Pause. “Under my insurance.”

“…what?”

She is doing an abominable job of this. Why is it so hard to just _say_ the damn thing? And while she fumbles, Cosima is getting more and more lost.

She runs an unsteady hand through her dreadlocks. “I’m a little fuzzy on the logic here. It’s a super nice thought, really, but you can’t just _give_ me your insurance-”

“No-”

“So _what?_ ” Cosima yells. “What are you getting my hopes up for?” She is shaking.

_This is all wrong._ Delphine forces herself to look the girl in the eyes. “Under my plan,” she says, with remarkable calm, “I am allowed to cover medical expenses for family.”

“So you want to…adopt me.”

She pushes past the sarcasm in Cosima’s voice. “That is not possible.” Her own voice sounds as if it is coming from a long way off. Her heartbeat is painfully loud in her ears. “Actually, we would have to be married.”

Stunned silence.

She looks down at her hands, where her nails have left pale crescents in the palms. She lets out a breath.

“Is that supposed to be funny or something?”

“It is not a joke,” she says quietly. “I am trying to-”

“Really.” She’s not yelling any more. But she is _angry_ , mon dieu, it is rolling off her in waves. “A green card marriage. For _insurance money?_ That’s not a joke? Because it sure as hell sounds like one.” She is grabbing her coat and bag. Delphine watches, frozen, as Cosima struggles to pull on her gloves. When the girl finally looks at her, the pain in her eyes is a raw, sharp thing.

“I thought-” She shakes her head. Makes a small noise. “Forget it.”

The door slams behind her.

Delphine slowly lowers her head to her hands, and curses, and curses, and curses.

—-

Without realizing it, she’s waiting for a call. If not a cancellation, then a transfer, maybe. A lawsuit? No. It wasn’t enough for that. She winces. _It wasn’t enough for anything_.

Which is why she stops dead when she sees a familiar red coat in the waiting room two days later. Cosima is talking to the receptionist. She seems…cheerful? Delphine is about to turn away, but then Cosima is looking up, at _her_ , and before she can duck into an observation room their eyes meet and the girl is waving.

“Dr. Cormier,” she calls. “You got a sec?”

She swallows and nods.

Cosima follows her past the desk to an alcove by one of the few vacant rooms on the floor. Unused machines sit blank and dusty within it. There are too many apologies to make. Delphine doesn’t know where to begin.

“I am…surprised to see you,” she manages, finally.

The girl shrugs beneath her coat. “Yeah, well. I’m full of surprises.”

Is that a joke? She ducks her head before Delphine can tell whether or not she is smiling.

“Um. I was thinking we should talk.”

“O-okay.”

“No, but – somewhere other than in the middle of a crowded hospital. The cafe across the street, maybe? After you check out for the day?”

“I’m not really supposed to see you outside of, ah, a medical context.”

“Uh _huh._ Pretty sure you’re not supposed to offer your patients your hand in marriage either.”

She is definitely joking this time. And grinning up at her, cheekily. Relief loosens knots in Delphine’s shoulders she didn’t know were there. Her chest feels lighter, somehow.

“This is true,” she tells Cosima.

“Cool. So I’ll see you in a few hours?”

—-

“I’m sorry I flipped out,” Cosima says.

They’re at a table by the window, each with a cup of cheap coffee. Cosima’s is already more beige than brown, but she keeps adding cream to it. Delphine stirs sugar into her coffee and hopes her hand is not shaking.

“It’s just…I wasn’t expecting…” Cosima gestures helplessly.

“I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have-”

“…but I’ve been thinking about it.”

Delphine swallows the rest of her sentence.

“I’ve been thinking,” Cosima continues, “that if you’re serious, I am just sick enough and just fucking desperate enough to actually consider the idea. But I need to know why you’re doing this.”

She lets out a long, slow breath. “That is…a very reasonable question.”

“I mean, is this a weird play from Medical Seduction 101? ‘cause if it is, wow, there are waaaay easier ways to get into a woman’s pants. Especially if she’s dying.” She says it lightly, joking, but both hands are clasping her coffee, unusually still. Expecting to be disappointed. Again.

“No, no!” Her cheeks are very warm. “I was serious.”

“So why?”

_Oh, merde._ She should have prepared for this. But her last few hours on call were a mess, and she has not slept much the past two days. As Cosima watches her from across the table, she realizes that beneath the eyeliner, there are budding shadows around her eyes. She is not the only one lacking sleep.

“Did you lose someone?”

Damn this girl. Damn how perceptive she is. “I’ve lost several ‘someones’.”

Cosima’s expression softens.

“But it has always been different, before.”

“Different how?”

She brushes a lock of hair out of her eyes. “Oh, like…” How is she supposed to explain what it is to lose someone you are responsible for? The coffee is bitter in her mouth. She is not sure she _wants_ to explain, but Cosima is waiting. Her eyes flicker to Delphine’s, to the table, to her coffee. She is very quiet. She deserves an answer.

“It is one thing to have patients you cannot help,” Delphine says at last. “Who no one can help. _C’est la vie_ , as you said. It is hard, but you must accept it. But then here you are, and…and you are healthy otherwise, it is not too far along, the only thing you need is surgery! But,” she swats angrily at the air, “insurance. And they do not care. They would let someone die over regulations.”

Cosima absorbs this slowly. She frees one hand from her coffee cup and straightens her glasses. “So you’d do this for any patient?”

“Any patient?” She hadn’t thought about it. “No,” she admits. “But you…deserve more time.” She almost stops there. “And I consider you a friend.”

The girl shifts in her chair, but does not lean away. She smiles gently. The bitter taste in Delphine’s mouth is fading.

“Pretty sure you’re not supposed to be friends with your patients.”

“Yes, well, as I recall I am not supposed to marry them, either.” Now they’re both smiling.

“To-shay,” Cosima says, lifting her cup in a toast.

Wrinkling her nose a little at the mangled French, she raises hers in reply.

“There should be a line about that in the Hippocratic Oath or something. ‘Thou shalt not wed thy patient to give her lung surgery.’”

“Mm. Oui.”

They sip their coffee. The silence is tentative, but not uncomfortable.

“So this is a totally professional thing? You’re definitely not _actually_ trying to seduce me?”

Delphine sighs in exasperation. “Cosima, you have already asked me this-”

“Okay, okay, calm down.” She flaps a hand in apology. “Just want to be clear. Because I feel obligated to tell you that as a proposal, that kind of sucked.” She is looking at Delphine gravely, but her mouth is twitching.

Delphine struggles not to laugh. “I am well aware.”

Cosima nods. “Well then, Dr. Cormier, tell me more about this crazy master plan of yours. Before I change my mind.”

So she does.


	4. Chapter 4

She’s halfway through filling out the referral when her phone vibrates. She stretches, fighting back a yawn as she reaches for it. Two more hours until her shift ends, then she can sleep. Nevermind that it’s barely 6 PM.

It’s a text from Cosima. “DELPHINE”

_“You know, you…shouldn’t keep calling me Dr. Cormier. I won’t be able to treat you any more, after this.” A sudden, worrying thought:_ Who will? _She shoves it aside. She’ll find someone. Preferably someone willing to share all of the lab work._

_The girl nods in agreement. “Yeah, of course. Good point.” The sun through the cafe window has put some color back in her skin, and she cocks her head to the side, inquiring. “So…?”_

_“Delphine.”_

_“Delphine,” she repeats, trying out the name with unusual care. She holds out a hand as if they’re meeting for the first time._

_Delphine takes it. It’s as warm as she remembers._

_“En-chan-tay.”_

_It’s just a pleasantry. A mispronounced one, at that. But she finds herself smiling._

Her phone vibrates again. Another text: “Check it!!”

There’s a picture attached. Cosima, posing dramatically in front of a store mirror, left hand held close to the camera. A silver double-helix is wrapped around her fourth finger, gold base pairs connecting the two strands.

“Coolest ring ever, right?”

They haven’t spoken in person since the conversation in the cafe, nearly a week ago, but each of Delphine’s days has been punctuated by texts like these. This, however, is the first to feature a ring.

The fallout has started small. Stares and whispers trailing her through the halls, barbed comments in the cafeteria, where she has taken to eating late lunches, after most of the crowd has passed. Her boss hasn’t said a word since she emailed him to explain why she can no longer treat her newest patient. (“…conflict of interest,” she remembers typing, before a long, agonizing pause, then a carefully prepared lie. A signature that she’s a little ashamed of.) The deception has left her feeling oddly cut off from this place. Every room, every hallcart, every bleak, buzzing light is a little more foreign. A little less hers. There will inevitably be reprimands, and they will not be pleasant. They will mean more lying.

“C’est vrai. Better than the one I found,” she texts in reply.

_It will be worth it._ _If the surgery is enough._

She shakes off the second thought.

_It will be worth it._

—-

“This is your apartment?” Delphine says, hoping her voice sounds calmer than she feels.

Cosima pauses half-way through opening a window and turns back to face her, raising an eyebrow. She cross her arms over her chest, necklaces jingling. “What, you don’t like?”

It’s not dislike so much as…shock. She was expecting a certain level of disorganization, knowing Cosima, even a bit of a mess, but this?

This is…entropy.

The walls are papered in warm gold and crisp black where they aren’t covered in notes and papers. More papers litter the carpet – _carpets_ , she amends, catching flashes of purple on one side of the room, ochre on the other – in between haphazard stacks of books. Modern medical textbooks are splayed out beside books so old that their covers are ragged. A potted plant sits next to a small skull on a shelf holding a stack of CDs and supporting a battered skateboard. The kitchen area is…relatively clean, but cluttered with at least eight mismatched sets of dishes. _Does she keep_ anything _in the cupboards?_ Delphine wonders, then catches sight of the home chemistry set and a stack of petri dishes and decides that, in the interest of plausible deniability, she’d rather not know. It’s a riot of colors and ideas, as if the whole room is shouting at her. It has Cosima’s voice. _So these are the things she thinks about when she isn’t in observation rooms, waging war against her own body._

Cosima’s cough snaps Delphine out of her reverie. She’s wearing a nervous smile. “Ground control to Major Tom. You okay?”

“Yes. Sorry,” she stammers.

“Thought I broke you for a second there. I mean, usually when I bring people in here I get a ‘God, Cos, dishes go in cupboards,’ or ‘What the hell is this stuff?’ or even a ‘Whoa, cool,’ but silence is new. Is this a bad silence?”

“No, no!” She smiles at her. “I like it. It’s very…you.”

Cosima sweeps a bow in her crowded living room and narrowly avoids knocking a microscope to the ground in the process.

“But,” Delphine bites her lip, “I don’t know if this will work. I mean,” she gestures at the mismatched contents filling the apartment to its brim. “Where would I _live_ in all of this, exactly?”

They survey it in thoughtful silence. Cosima taps her foot, frowning at a bust of Darwin on the nearest shelf, then she shakes her head, sighing. “Shit. Yeah. You’re right.” She turns to Delphine with a woeful look. “Your turn, I guess.”

—-

“Oh. My. God.”

Cosima hasn’t even set foot in the apartment. She’s just stalled in the doorway, gaping.

“Holy shit. _Holy shit_.”

Delphine looks at her, uncertain, acutely aware of how bland her apartment looks after Cosima’s. She could almost swear she had more furniture at one point, or at least more photos on the walls… or was that back in Paris?

Cosima finally lopes inside. She strolls to the middle of the living room, arms outstretched, and spins around, laughing. “I can’t believe this place. I mean, it’s a _little_ more austere than I’d imagined,” she admits, raising her eyebrows at Delphine, “but it is hella nice.” She darts back towards the kitchen, whistles appreciatively at the large fridge, raps a knuckle on the black countertop. Then she spots the sliding glass door. “Oh no way. You have a _balcony?_ ”

“It’s…it’s very small…”

“It’s still a _balcony_ ,” Cosima calls over her shoulder, peering out across the cloud-strewn city. “Shit. You and your doctor’s salary, man!”

“The place is not as expensive as it looks,” she says, blushing. It’s true – her salary is not nearly as much as the average patient seems to believe. “But I don’t spend much apart from rent, so-”

Cosima holds up a hand to cut her off. “Nuh-uh. Don’t give me excuses. You are officially the classiest lady I could possibly be fake-marrying. This is now a fact.”

“Don’t be too impressed,” Delphine warns. Cosima is running a hand across the walls, awestruck, as if white stucco wallpaper were suddenly impressive. “I- what’s that saying? I…put my shoes on one at a time, the same as everyone?”

Cosima turns to fix her with a look of utmost skepticism. She points at Delphine’s knee-high boots, arching an eyebrow. “Those amazing specimens of footwear? Those you sure as _hell_ don’t put on like the rest of us plebians.”

She decides to take this as a compliment. She _likes_ these boots. “So,” she asks warily as Cosima saunters around, pausing to inspect the few shelves and decorations with a thoughtful hum, “what do you think? Will this be okay?”

Cosima flops down on the only couch. “Hoo boy.” She stretches luxuriously. “I think that I’m suddenly way less put out by that cohabitation clause than I was when you read it to me.” She leans over the back of the couch to grin at Delphine, teeth flashing brightly between her lips. “I swear I’ll try not to totally drown your living room in my stuff.”

“Thank you.”

“For at least a couple weeks.”

Delphine takes a long, wistful look at the plush carpet. She hopes the girl is joking.

—-

Delphine Cormier and Cosima Niehaus are married the following Wednesday, in a courthouse, with a notary as witness. Cosima’s dress is a deep red. The vibrant color suits her, but it makes Delphine uneasy. She keeps seeing shadows behind it, beneath it, where Cosima’s lungs ought to be. _You’re tired,_ she thinks. _Stop imagining these things._

But the image never quite fades throughout the short ceremony. She is dimly aware of being cold (her dress is white, and a little too thin for the air conditioning), of Cosima’s hand, clammy in her own, of the girl smiling nervously up at her as the judge speaks. She misses most of the actual words, until-

The judge is peering at her from his bench. He just said something. _Oh, merde. What did he say?_ Then she sees that the notary is staring at her, too, and looks down to find Cosima’s eyes flickering worriedly across her face. The judge repeats himself.

Of all the details she has waded through these past few weeks, this one escaped her.

It’s such a small thing, but somehow the fact that they haven’t talked about it before, that they never quite agreed to it, makes her more worried than the matrimonial vows or the vast insurance fraud they’re about to commit. Cosima gives her hand a squeeze. She’s wearing a sheepish smile that seems to say, _I know, but they’re waiting._

Right. _Right._ It’s only a kiss, after all.

She dips her head, and Cosima stretches up to her.

_Oh._

Cosima’s lips are dry, but her mouth is soft. She is very gentle. She tastes faintly of blood. Behind the blood, there is sweetness and a sudden pain in Delphine’s chest.

_It’s only a kiss_. And then it is over.

There is polite applause when they break apart, and as the judge hands her the certificate she tries to ignore the heat in her cheeks, a blush that is mirrored on Cosima’s pale face. _She is going to be okay._ The thought steadies her. When they get to her car, neither of them speaks for a while. Cosima reads the certificate, chewing her lower lip.

“I know it was the logical call, keeping our own, but I’m a little disappointed. I mean, ‘Cosima Cor-mie-ay,” she drawls, “is way hotter than Niehaus. Does it mean anything, your last name? I never asked.”

Delphine, distracted by the string of half-formed questions (apologies?) running through her mind, blinks for a moment before answering. “Probably. I think my grandfather told me once, but…I don’t remember.”

“Well, greater sacrifices have been made.” She gives a lofty sigh. “I’ve been saddled with Niehaus long enough. Couple more years can’t hurt, I guess.”

It’s the first time she’s heard Cosima mention years rather than months in her future. “You plan on being married in a few more years? …Actually married?”

She shrugs, then winks. “Girl can dream, right?”

Dreams are a good sign, and Delphine smiles. “Oui.”

Cosima draws in a tentative breath. “So, don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but…have you ever kissed a girl before?”

In a distant, almost clinical way, Delphine feels her cheeks shift from pink to scarlet. _Was it that obvious?_ “I, ah-”

“Hey, relax, we totally don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want!” Cosima holds her hands up. “I’m not trying to pry or anything. Just, um, if not…I wanted to make sure you were okay. Getting blind-sided like that and all. I’m an idiot for not thinking of it before, but I kind of figured the whole ‘You may kiss the bride’ thing had gone out of style, y’know? Plus it makes zero sense, linguistically speaking, since we’re _both_ the brides. Like, who’s supposed to kiss who?” She spreads her hands helplessly. “They gotta find a better way to phrase that.” Glancing sidewise at Delphine, she winces. “Aaaand I’m babbling. Sorry. That happens sometimes.”

Even babbling, Cosima manages to be strangely eloquent. And a little comforting. Delphine takes a deep breath and wills herself to stop blushing. “C’est bien. It’s fine. I mean…I had not, but-” She waves a hand, fumbling for words. _For god’s sake, you have a PhD_ , she reminds herself. _Is it so hard to have a conversation about so small a thing as this?_

“You okay?” She says it lightly, but her eyes are worried.

“Yes. I did not mind so much as…” Delphine grapples with English, “…it caught me off-guard?” She bites her lip and glances at the girl beside her. “And I had not asked you about it before, so-”

“Oh. Ohhh.” She seems surprised by the concern. Surprised and a little pleased. She shakes her head, smiling. “No, don’t worry about it. We’re totally cool. At least, uh, I am. If you are.”

Delphine wonders if she’ll ever get used to Cosima’s…dialect. “I am ‘cool’,” she says. The last of the tension seeps out of her spine.

“Good. Great! And, uh, for what it’s worth, that was a very decent kiss.”

_'Very decent'?_ “Thank you. I…think?” She can’t help chuckling.

“There we go, that’s what I was waiting for,” Cosima exclaims. “Laughter! Mission accomplished.” She is grinning at her from the passenger seat, though there’s still a hint of worry in her eyes. Delphine grins back, and the worry finally fades. She taps her fingers on the steering wheel and leans forward to reach for the key.

“Hey, Delphine?”

She glances over. Cosima is staring at her hands, clasping and unclasping them in her lap. She suddenly seems rather small. It’s the observation room all over again. Delphine’s stomach turns.

“I just…I wanted to say thanks. Again.” Her voice is quiet. “I mean, all of this, it’s…a little crazy, you know?”

Delphine squeezes her eyes shut for a moment. She laughs. “Oui. Yes.” _I know, believe me._

There’s a brief pressure as Cosima’s hand rests on her arm. It seems very light. Delphine struggles to remember the weights she jotted down at their last few checkups. _Is she eating enough?_ Then she remembers that she is not her doctor any more. She’s only her friend. And, for a time, her wife.

“Seriously. Thank you.”

She doesn’t know how to respond. _It’s nothing_ would be a lie. _You are welcome_ sounds so…empty. Instead she smiles at the girl in the passenger seat and simply nods.

From the smile she gets in return, it seems to be enough.

Later that night, Delphine lies in her bed thinking about the courthouse, the car, the drive back. She can hear Cosima puttering around in the living-room-turned-guest-room, still unpacking, humming to herself now and then. Part of her worries what the place will look like in the morning, but as she drifts off to sleep, Cosima’s words from earlier keep echoing in her head. Red and white afterimages chase themselves across her eyelids.

_Is it really so crazy a thing to do?_ she thinks.

She falls asleep with the taste of iron on her lips.

When she wakes up, she remembers none of this.


	5. Chapter 5

Delphine has been dragged out of bed by phone calls, by roommates, by exes, by fire alarms, even an actual fire, but this is the first time she’s been woken up by…

…pancakes?

She props herself up on her elbows and sniffs the air blearily. Her clock is blinking 7:18. Morning light is pooling beneath the window shades. She’s in her own bed, black and white sheets tangled around her body, and all of these things fit together in a neat pattern, the shape of all her weekdays. The persistent smell of pancakes does not. There are twelve minutes left on the alarm, but she’s climbed too far into wakefulness now, so she shuts it off, stifling a yawn, and staggers out of her bedroom.

She’s expecting an open window with the neighbors’ breakfast smells drifting in. Instead she finds a pullout couch in her living room, clothes and a few books piled beside it, and a girl in her kitchen, dreadlocks swaying as she dances along the counter, spatula in hand. The largest pan Delphine owns is sizzling on the stove.

She stares at all of this, dumb-founded, and opens her mouth. But before her groggy mind can assemble the right words, everything shifts just a few degrees and falls into place. Cosima, the illness, the plan, the wedding. The ring on her left hand where a ring has never been before.

The list begins to loop in her head, then catches like a broken record, stuttering the first two again and again until she shakes it out. She clutches at her head.

“Hey! You’re up.” Cosima waves the spatula in greeting. She is astoundingly cheerful for this hour of the morning. A dollop of pancake mix flies off the spatula and land on her cheek. She squints at it, wipes it off with a finger, licks the finger clean.

‘Up,’ yes. Delphine’s still not completely sure about awake, but she manages a nod. So this is the first morning of married life: pancakes and tentative words and laughter. Mercifully, there is also coffee. The pancakes are more delicious than anything from a mix has a right to be. Cosima’s grin keeps flashing out between bites like it’s been recharged twofold by a single night’s sleep, and it’s contagious. When Delphine finally makes it to the door, running late, her cheeks are sore from smiling.

“Drive fast!” Cosima yells after her. “But don’t hit anything!” A pause. “Ten points for dramatic near-misses, though. Minus fifty if you hit any skateboarders!”

Delphine shakes her head and races down the stairwell.

——-

The ring, predictably, makes things more awkward at work. Patients don’t ask (though some used to ask why she _wasn’t_ married, before), but most of her colleagues have heard the story behind it by now. It gets her stares, or snickers, even disgusted scowls. If they haven’t heard the official story, then they’ve heard rumors. She seduced a patient, or a patient seduced her, or she’s pregnant (this one amuses her), she’s been stealing medical supplies, she’s married to a black market dealer… The image of Cosima trying to run an opiate smuggling ring keeps leaping into her head, and she nearly bursts out laughing while one of her older patients is in the middle of telling her about a painful goiter. She turns the laugh into a concerned, partly strangled cough. _You’d think they’d all have more to do than gossip_. _Or that the gossip would stay closer to reality._

As if on cue, the hearing happens a few days after the wedding. More than nervous, more than ashamed, she is _angry_ throughout the whole thing. She bites her tongue, clenching her left hand around the ring that still surprises her for an instant each time she sees it. She looks down the table at the disciplinary committee members gathered in this cool, stark conference room. None of them know Cosima Niehaus. She’s just a name and a problem to them. _If they knew her, would it make a difference?_ But as Dephine takes in the pinched faces, the muffled sighs, the carefully-pitched whispers, she already knows the answer. So she sticks to her role: calm and contrite. She does not talk to them about the inhumane cost of lung surgery, about their own indifference, about her friend. No matter how much she wants to.

In the end, she is ‘let off easy’ (Cosima’s words when she gets back to the apartment that night, said with a relieved smile and a high-five). A few mandatory extra shifts, a mark in her record. But the injustice of Cosima’s situation stays fresh with her for days in a way it hasn’t since those first few weeks after a dying girl with a cracked smile looked up at her in the observation room. It’s a constant pressure in her throat like a choked back shout.

——-

Work goes on. She buries herself in cases and lab results and her extra shifts, and at the hospital, she’s mostly just glad that the days keep passing.

Outside of the hospital, things are…different.

It’s not just getting used to a shared space or each other’s schedules (though there are days of hasty showers and groggy apologies). It’s finding Cosima sprawled out on the floor or halfway between carpet and couch most mornings, instead of asleep on the pullout bed. It’s coming home exhausted and staying up long past midnight talking immunology or evolution or whatever latest discoveries have caught Cosima’s eye. They still don’t talk often about her own research, but at least she’s gotten back to it. At least she looks hopeful again. Hope, on Cosima, is a fragile half-smile that comes and goes at odd moments when she’s lost in thought, lips parting just a little, brows furrowing.

Hope would be easy to miss if you weren’t looking for it so closely.

It’s notebooks all over the living room, in spite of promises to the contrary, and stained tissues like discarded petals in the wastebaskets. It’s dinners out where the other patrons sometimes compliment them or wish them well. They smile politely and laugh about it afterwards, though for some reason Delphine can’t bring herself to meet the other girl’s eyes. It’s more movies than she’s seen in months, watched curled up on the couch with popcorn for throwing at the TV (“Dude, popcorn voting is _essential_. Literally the best way to tell a movie, ‘God, no, thumbs-down, make it stop.’” “And if I like the scene?” “Then just keep eating.”). It’s waking up to music that she cannot name, and twice to coughing in the next room, not knowing whether to go to her or to pretend, as Cosima so clearly wants to do, that everything is okay.

It’s learning that Cosima is as phenomenal at cooking most dishes as she is at pancakes, but that she’s utterly at a loss with salads. At first Delphine marks this up to distraction, but the second time she sees Cosima pile lettuce and a lone, sliced tomato on a plate, staring at it like she’s trying to unravel the cellular structure of a newfound organism, she gives up.

“Go. Sit.” She shoos the girl away.

“Hey, I was-“

“ _Sit,_ ” she insists. “I’ll make it.”

Fifteen minutes later Cosima is devouring salad niçoise. When she finally slows down, she stares at Delphine with something approaching awe. “How did you do this?”

“It is simple.” She spears a few olives from her own plate.

“No,” Cosima says firmly, “baking is simple. Spaghetti is simple. This is some kind of…French…sorcery.”

Delphine nearly chokes on an olive, laughing.

Cosima shoots a mock glare at her. “I’m serious. You owe me some answers here.”

“What kind of answers?”

Cosima holds up a hand, the one not currently twirling her fork, and begins counting fingers. “One: extremely French accent. Two: extremely French salad. Three: _killer_ taste in wine. And yet,” she peers over her glasses, “I have never seen you eat a baguette. Not once. Explain.”

“You have some very strange ideas about life in France,” Delphine chuckles.

She shrugs. “Yeah, well, I’ve never been, so I don’t have much to work with. Other than exaggerated stereotypes, obvs.” She winks as she takes another bite of salad. “So help me out. Tell me what Paris is like.”

The word stings a little. It shouldn’t, after two years, but it does. She tries not to think about Paris very often. Cosima waits with her head tilted to one side. One of her feet is bobbing beside the table – she seems to resent sitting up straight – but apart from that she’s almost still. She almost looks patient. But her eyes have the same eager glow they get whenever she sees a new book, and Delphine shakes her head. _There’s no getting out of it now._ She runs through years of memories, like tracing a hand through a stream, not sure where to start.

“I used to live down the street from a bakery,” she says at last. “Not always – when I was younger, my family lived in another part of the city – but during college and after.”

“I knew it!” Cosima pumps a fist in the air. “You ate baguettes every day.”

“I did _not_.”

The girl sighs in disappointment. “Okay, okay, no baguettes. So…?”

“…brioche,” she admits. Cosima grins at this, tongue darting across her bottom lip, but refrains from comment. “I got up early, so I would stop by right after they opened to buy breakfast. The streets were always so quiet. I mean, it is Paris, you know there are millions of people, but still. It’s…soft, somehow, in the mornings. Comfortable.” She feels herself blushing and looks at Cosima, expecting an eyeroll, but to her surprise she is nodding as if waxing poetic over salad were perfectly normal. She’s even smiling. “I’m sorry, it is difficult to explain.”

“Sounds like home,” Cosima says gently.

She is remembering the sky over the Seine. The clouds just before sunset, the city’s lights blossoming after, doubling in the water. “Yes. It was.”

“And now?”

She frowns, confused.

“Is it still home, I mean? Or have we totally converted you?” The girl spreads her arms and does a small spin in the chair to encompass, presumably, America.

Delphine turns the question over in her mind. She still misses Paris. She might always miss it, unless she goes back. There’s familiarity there, certainly, and beauty, but…Minneapolis has its charms. And across the table from her, there’s a girl who ‘gets’ her in a way that no one else has in a very long time. Who smiles like each day is the best she’s ever seen. Who is never entirely gone from her mind. When she holds an image of her city up to all of the past few weeks, it’s strangely pallid.

“I would say you’re growing on me,” she says, smiling.

Cosima rests her chin on one hand and grins. “Correct answer. We do our best.”

She can’t help laughing at that. “Well, now you must tell me about your Bay Area.”

 “Mmm, no, I didn’t agree to that.”

“It’s only fair. And I need to know something about your home, at least, for the interview.”

The recent announcement of the “interview” from her insurance company sent both of them into a minor panic, and Cosima into a night of stress-baking. Delphine knew there would be one, but having a set date has made it seem far more real. If they pass, and the insurance clears them, Cosima can officially get the treatment she needs. If not-

_We’ll pass._

Cosima groans at the mention of the interview and throws herself backwards in her chair. “Okay,” she sighs. “I’ll do my best, but only if we can swap. I give you a story from the old homestead, you give me one. Deal?”

Delphine nods.

“Cool.” She starts to smile as she warms to the idea. “But fair warning: there’s no way I can do it total justice. I’ll have to show it to you someday.” Then her eyes dim. The smile fades, and she looks away, laughing weakly. “If, um. If I can, y’know.”

That pressure is back in Delphine’s throat. “Hey.”

The girl shifts her weight in the chair before glancing up. The smile flickers on again, but there’s strain behind it.

“I would like that,” Delphine tells her quietly.

Cosima looks at her for a moment. Something shifts behind her eyes that Delphine cannot quite place. Surprise, maybe? Relief? Finally, the smile grows into a proper grin. “Okay,” she says.

She tells herself that this is a promise, even if she might never see the West Coast. It’s a promise that Cosima will live long enough to keep or to willingly break. Delphine would settle for either.

“So…what do you know about Berkeley?”

——-

One month left until the interview, and this weekend, Cosima has decided to learn French.

“You don’t have to,” Delphine insists, but Cosima rolls her shoulders and wrinkles her nose.

“ _Oh con-trair_ , she says,” if this is gonna be convincing, I have to know some of it. How else am I supposed to have seduced my hot French wife?”

It’s one of English’s stranger expressions, but with Cosima grinning brightly at her, it’s, well…flattering. Maybe she should mind the compliment or this version of the story. Instead she’s struggling not to smile. “Please, no more. Your accent-“

“-is incredibly impressive?”

“-needs _work_ ,” she groans.

“ _Vray?_ ”

She buries her face in her hands.

There’s a pat on her shoulder, and Cosima’s laugh rings out beside her. “Come onnn, man, you gotta help me. If I’m so bad, how would _you_ say it?”

“Vrai,” Delphine mumbles.

“Vray?”

“ _Vrai_.”

“Vraaaaaay?”

It keeps getting worse. She didn’t think that was possible. She glares at Cosima through her fingers only to find the brunette shaking with silent laughter, bracing herself against one of the chairs. She stares at her. “You’re teasing me.”

“It’s too easy!” Cosima protests.

Delphine gets up and stomps over to the sink, muttering in French as she begins washing out her coffee mug.

“No, no, see, that’s perfect! You have to teach me how to do that!” Cosima bounds over to lean against the counter. She frowns. “And, uh, what all of that meant, ‘cause honestly I caught like one word. Tops.”

Delphine turns and smiles sweetly at her. “That was the point.”

Winter is setting in now, and the city outside her windows is cloaked in whites and greys. But in here, it’s warm. In here, it’s like snow thawing.


	6. Chapter 6

In the end, it’s the ring that does it.

She doesn’t remember falling asleep. Or, for that matter, the last half of the movie they were watching. There are a few vague snatches of a black and white city and giant insects, then suddenly she’s blinking away sunlight. Her neck creaks in protest as she sits up, finding herself on the pullout couch. Warmth slides off of her – Cosima’s periodic table blanket. She looks around to apologize for falling asleep, and worse, for evicting Cosima from her own bed – but the small heap of other blankets on the floor beside the couch is empty. She calls out, sleep still thick in her voice. “Cosima?”

The name echoes faintly between the bookcases that have grown much fuller since Cosima’s arrival, the desk and overflowing dresser against the far wall. No answer.

It’s early, for a weekend. The analog clock in her kitchen reads somewhere between 8 and 9, an hour Cosima rarely even spends awake. There are no classes on the weekends, and she has no experiments to tend to until Monday. _She’s at the hospital_ , some irrational part of Delphine’s brain whispers, but she rejects this with an angry shake of her head. She would’ve woken up, if things had gone wrong, with Cosima only a few feet away from her. This thought distracts her for a moment. (Unless…she did hear something, at some point in the night? Wake once, at least a little?)

She pinches the bridge of her nose. _Mon dieu, when did I become this paranoid?_

Breakfast, she decides. It’s easier to be rational on a full stomach. And once she’s eaten, there are files to sort through, and by then, Cosima will probably be back. She’ll be fine.

 _Or you could text her now._ _Just to ask_.

She plucks her phone from the coffee table on her way into the kitchen. She’s halfway through tapping out a message one-handed, fishing for a box of granola with the other, when she notices.

There’s no ring on her left hand.

She pauses. Blinks once, deliberately, inhales, and looks again. There is still only skin.

 _Merde_.

She stares dumbly at her right hand, but of course it isn’t there either. Would have no place there. It had been getting loose, she’d meant to take it in to be resized, but…she never made time. Delphine thinks over the past madcap week and her twenty new patients and groans. Surely she could’ve squeezed a few extra minutes from her schedule here and there. But she didn’t. And now…

Now she has far more pressing business than breakfast.

——-

An hour later, she’s starting to despair. She’s been through her own room (though there are plenty of Cosima’s things in it these days, dresses that needed a place to hang, painted sneakers and platform heels mingling with her boots), and after nearly a dozen passes she’s come up with nothing. She’s checked the bathroom, every possible place in the living room, even the unlikely ones. Mendel, Cosima’s houseplant (it could have fallen off when she watered him). Behind the TV, where Cosima keeps a stash of board games (it could be in one of their boxes, among the dice they used, but it is not). The wastebasket (only papers and a fresh set of bloody tissues, though these are tightly crumpled as if to hide their contents, and her chest aches with every new one she finds). She’s checked the kitchen sink, gritting her teeth, to find only food scraps. She is running out of places to look.

There are alternatives, of course, the best of which is it being at work, and the worst… Delphine bites her lip. Somewhere utterly inconsequential. A street corner, a parking lot, a place where she has no hope of finding it. She sinks onto the couch, head in her hands. _I thought I had it just last night_. Surely she would’ve noticed if she’d lost it earlier, the way she is so bitterly aware of its absence now. Her hand is much too light. She curls it into a fist against the side of her head and feels…nothing. Like a limp, cut cord where there should be an answering tug.

Perhaps she’s wrong, though. Perhaps she lost it earlier, even days ago, though the thought makes her cheeks burn and her mouth sour. She tries to reconcile herself with this as she does one last pass through the apartment, lifting the mattress entirely out of the pullout couch to rummage beneath it. She finds a takeout receipt from the other day and two of Cosima’s rings – the girl is forever leaving jewelry in her wake – but not her own.

 _I can’t have lost it_ , she thinks, stomach roiling, and she’s not sure which sense of the words she means. It’ll be at work. _Maybe someone will have found it_ -

“…Delphine?”

She looks up from the depths of the couch to find Cosima gaping in the doorway. Gaping because, now that she glances around as well, the apartment looks like its been thoroughly burgled – but Cosima, at least, seems fine. The familiar red coat and eyeliner mean there was no emergency that called her away, only something ordinary, something planned. But for once, she is speechless. Still gaping.

“I think I’ve lost my ring,” Delphine says before she can stop herself. Her voice comes out impressively steady, but there is nowhere near enough apology in it, and far more embarrassment than she’d realized. She’s waiting for a, “Um, what? A ring?” or worse, a flash of hurt darkening the girl’s eyes, but Cosima just claps her hands over her mouth. She looks stricken.

“Oh god, Delphine, I didn’t think…” She presses both hands to her forehead, eyes squeezing shut behind her glasses. “Shit. I am so, so sorry.”

_Sorry?_

Before Delphine can form the word, Cosima reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out a tiny blue box. A _ring_ box. Delphine’s heart skids to a baffled stop.

“I, uh, kinda borrowed it.” She closes the door behind her, taking a deep breath, then barrels on. “You were completely checked out, and you haven’t had like five minutes of downtime all week, plus I know this jeweler that’s open early on Saturdays, so…” her free hand traces this explanation in the air, “I thought I’d get it fixed. And it was really loose, I mean…you didn’t even wake up when I slipped it off.” Cosima, who is never embarrassed, is blushing sheepishly, one knee leaning against the other, her whole body condensed in apology. “The plan was to have it back before you even woke up, but…” she winces, “I guess I missed that boat. Apparently, resizing a ring takes longer than a few minutes.”

Delphine is still struggling to catch up. “You…got it fixed?” she repeats slowly.

“Uh-huh.”

She looks at her hand, at the ring box, at Cosima. “You could have _told_ me.”

“That would’ve defeated the whole point of a surprise present,” Cosima points out. But she sighs. “You’re right, though. I’m sorry, seriously. It was a stupid plan. I didn’t think you’d even miss it.”

 _Neither did I_. “No, it’s…it’s okay. I may have overreacted a bit.” Thankfully, this understatement goes without comment _._ “I just thought, you know…”

Cosima nods and stands up a little straighter, still not fully uncoiled from her apology, though a hopeful expression creeps onto her face as she crosses the room. “So you’re sure you’re alright?”

“Yes.” And she is, now. She’s breathing easier, and she feels a smile forming at the thought of Cosima giving up sleep for nothing more than a spur of the moment kindness. For her. “I believe presents are supposed to be _given_ to people, though, no?”

“Right. Yep. Absolutely true.” She takes the ring from the box and holds out a hand. Delphine rests her left hand atop it, fingers outstretched, just a few inches shy of the dandelion seeds drifting across the girl’s forearm. Warm, careful fingers slide the ring into place. It fits perfectly just above the knuckle, winking silver up at her, and though she’s relieved, her heart is doing tight cartwheels inside her chest.

Cosima is watching her with a soft, lopsided smile. “You may now kiss the bride,” she says in a mockery of the judge’s voice, and it’s almost a joke. It could only be a joke. But her voice is a little too full, her palm hot beneath Delphine’s, and she is so _close_. The shadows beneath her eyes have gotten even darker, in spite of the makeup she puts on to hide them. But her gaze itself, flickering across Delphine’s face, questioning, is brighter than ever. Suddenly, months of denial whenever Cosima’s arm seems to linger around her waist during introductions, when she catches Cosima watching her out of the corner of her eye, when that easy smile seems like it’s getting a little wider every time it’s meant for her…

All of these seem like a criminal waste.

Delphine is not, has never been good at belief. Facts may be harsh, but they are solid things. Though she knows countless facts about the human body’s mechanisms of destruction, somehow this fragile tension hanging between them scares her more.

But Delphine is sick of fear. She is tired of counting the days of their _six good months_ , of hoping and not knowing. So she laces her fingers between Cosima’s, and leans in, and believes.

There are no witnesses this time. No courthouse. Just Cosima, rising on tip-toe to meet her, Cosima kissing her back with a tender urgency that answers every one of her questions in an instant. Delphine clings to her, heart pounding. She still tastes of blood – more strongly than before, like metal shavings and apple – but Delphine doesn’t want to think about that. Not now. She cradles Cosima’s face in her hands and feels rather than sees her smile beneath her lips. Cosima’s arms, wrapped around her waist, pull her closer. She is not counting the kisses, or all the ways in which their bodies fold together, though she is committing them carefully to memory – the cool shock of Cosima’s nosering, the crests and hollows of tan skin beneath her fingers, the warmth where their hips meet through their clothes and the replying warmth low in her stomach. She is not thinking about shadows or x-rays as she slides a hand down Cosima’s back and leans in deeper, lips parting. Her only coherent thought is the same words, over and over. _Why did we wait?_ The apartment is a vague thing at the edges of her awareness, hazy and golden in the morning light that eddies around them.

Then Cosima places a hand on her stomach and pushes her gently back. She looks down, disappointment and eagerness slipping towards worry, to see her laughing. “What is it?”

Her shoulders are shaking a little. She brushes a hand across Delphine’s cheek, a slow, wondering motion. Delphine allows herself to lean into it as they both catch their breath, though Cosima’s voice, when she finds it, is pleasantly hoarse. “This whole time, I mean…I’d _hoped_ , obvs, but I figured…you only liked guys.” It’s hardly a complaint, though. Her dark eyes are hooded, and she’s smiling like – what is the saying? Like it’s going out of style. As if happiness, on her, ever could.

“So did I.” Now she is the one laughing.

Cosima straightens her glasses and peers up at her, though her other hand has stayed at the small of Delphine’s back. Her fingers are drumming out a soft rhythm. “What?” she asks.

“Oh, it’s just…I have never been happy about an incorrect hypothesis before.” And because she has wanted to for long enough, she reaches out to trace the corner of that cheeky answering grin.

“I’m like ninety percent sure that this wasn’t part of our original plan.”

“Oui. I don’t think it was.”

She smiles. “Then I hate to tell you this, Doctor Cormier,” the name is somewhere between a laugh and a purr, “but the plan might have a flaw.”

“It does,” Delphine agrees. She pauses thoughtfully, puts on a mock frown. “Though if you tell me that this was only a ‘very decent’ kiss-”

Cosima’s reply may not be eloquent in the traditional sense, but it leaves no room for doubt. Or for air. Delphine breaks away to place a kiss along the slope of her jaw. Seeing the pulse racing in her throat, she kisses this too until Cosima runs a finger beneath her chin, tilting it back up to meet her lips.

She has lost herself before, but it was always a solitary thing. The way of most discoveries. Getting caught up in concepts so intricate that they swallow you whole for hours on end, wash your borders away.

Here, in the bed that they finally stumble to, breathless, tangled, half-laughing, Delphine mouths Cosima’s name into her skin. She loses herself in all the collapsing spaces between them. But for once, being lost is the farthest thing from being alone.


End file.
